Category Archives: Technical Communication

Next Advanced Technical Writing Techniques Course: 22 April 2013

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Trends in Technical Communication Workshop – Advanced Technical Writing TechniquesYou’ll find our next public Trends in Technical Communication Workshop – Advanced Technical Writing Techniques training course is scheduled for Monday 22 April 2013.

We’ve added some more comments from delegates to the page.

“Excellent over-view and will be useful for practical application. Much food for thought – useful for starting ideas on improving (the) existing approach to Help files.”
“Very thought provoking.”
“I just wanted to say ‘thank you!’ for the excellent training session yesterday. I’m putting those principles to work today as I review the UA for one of our websites. The way I write has changed dramatically.”
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Our March newsletter contains news and stories for you on creating clear and simple information your users will love

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Today, we’ll be sending out the Cherryleaf newsletter for March 2013, containing news and stories on creating clear and simple information your users will love.

You can join the thousands who receive our free newsletter – subscribe here. You’ll be sent a copy of the latest edition straightaway.

Your details won’t be shared with anyone, and you can un-subscribe at any time.

We explain things

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Danielle M. Villegas has just pointed us towards a five minute lightning talk by Rick Lippencott on the future of technical communication, and its value. Rick covers in five  minutes a great deal of the content I covered in my 45 minute presentation at the same conference – it’s worth watching.

He summarises the value of Technical Authors in three simple words :”We explain things”.

Rick added some notes to the description on YouTube:

The clay tablet “first example of tech documentation” is about ten thousand years old, not two thousand.
The odd photo at about the 4:50 mark (where I say any of us could have explained it better) was a hotel room layout map posted at the elevators. It gave room locations based on compass points, but there was no way for the reader to know which way was actually north. It was completely useless.
“All of this has happened before, and it will happen again” was originally from Peter Pan.

What it’s like to present a lightning talk

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Content Strategy Lighting TalkOn Tuesday night, I presented my first ever lightning talk. It was at the London Content Strategy Meetup.

A lightning talk is a presentation format in which 20 slides are shown for 15 seconds each (giving each presenter five minutes in total). The format is used to keep presentations concise and fast-paced, and to allow the time for lots of speakers to participate in the event.

It’s very similar to “Pecha Kucha nights”, however those give speakers the luxury of an extra five seconds per slide.

So what’s it like to present a lightning talk?

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Webinar: Towards an Agile authoring methodology – learning from Lean

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Agile programming has grown in popularity and it has led to new challenges for those involved in providing user assistance for those applications. So is it time for technical authors to develop an equivalent method for developing content for these projects? Is it time to develop an “Agile authoring” methodology? Also, if we want to move away from a hand-crafted approach to developing content and towards a more engineering-like approach, what can we learn from the latest techniques being applied in manufacturing?

Such a method needs to complement Agile programming, but it may be a mistake to take Agile programming as the starting point for developing it. The developers of Agile drew upon the principles of Lean manufacturing, and perhaps technical authors should do the same.

In this webinar, we will explain how the principles of Lean manufacturing can be applied to developing and managing content. It’s a way of writing that focuses on maximizing the value to the user and minimizing waste. It involves measuring the processes and value of what has been delivered so that iterative improvements can be made over time.

This webinar will be hosted by the Society for Technical Communication.

Promo code: WS030513

Register for Towards an Agile Authoring Methodology – Learning From Lean

New design models for providing end user Help

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Ray Gallon has recently completed a series of webinars looking at new models for providing end user Help (A Cognitive Design for User Assistance).

In the third webinar, Ray looked at how people learn today and he suggested a new approach for the future. He used The Common European Framework of Reference for Language‘s description of people’s levels of competences to outline the different ways organisations help people to learn.
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Our interview in AccountingWeb – “Don’t be a boring accountant: Lessons from a technical author”

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AccountingWeb logoCherryleaf’s Ellis Pratt was interviewed recently for an article for AccountingWeb called Don’t be a boring accountant: Lessons from a technical author. The article has been published today.

It explores what accountants can learn from Technical Authors in how to avoid being seen as boring, whilst still maintaining their credibility.

The full article is available to registered AccountingWEB members only. It’s free to register.

Webinar: Planning User Documentation When You Are a Startup Business

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In conjunction with The Society for Technical Communication, we’ll be presenting the webinar Planning User Documentation When You Are a Startup Business on Tuesday, 19th February.

In this presentation, we’ll look at how to plan a user documentation project when you’re working for a startup technology company. Working in this environment gives you the opportunity to work “from a clean sheet,” but it also has its own challenges of working in a dynamic and rapidly changing environment.
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The Society for Communication’s first guest blogger is….

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STC logoThe Society for Technical Communication, the professional body for technical communicators in the USA, is introducing a number of specially selected guest bloggers to its official blog. The first guest blogger is, we’re pleased to say, Cherryleaf’s Director of Sales and Marketing, Ellis Pratt.

These posts, called “Letter from the UK”, will explore what’s happening for technical communicators in the UK and mainland Europe. You’ll find the first post on the “STC Notebook blog” today:

STC’s Notebook has long been a great source for STC-related news, information and conversation. Now it hopes to become the same for topics relating to technical communications. We’re delighted to be involved and participating in this initiative, and we hope you’ll find these posts of interest.